


The course of true love never did run smooth

by Fatale (femme)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 06:19:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13898085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: He’s been here enough times to recognize the symptoms. It’s not a bad thing, exactly, but love just never seems to lead him anywhere he particularly wants to be.---a soulmate au.





	The course of true love never did run smooth

**Author's Note:**

> soulmate au, kind of follows canon, kind of doesn't. 
> 
> p.s. i have debated deleting all of my stories. it will not happen anytime soon, may not happen at all, but if you want to keep any of them, then please download them now. i do not keep reliable backups anywhere.
> 
> “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” ― Orson Welles

 

  
1.

Magnus has never had a soulmate and he’s mostly cool with it. Catarina had one years ago, had described the rosiness that bloomed across his cheeks when they met, color that bled out to the surrounding trees, grass, and sky.

Magnus listened with a vague sense of unease, sipping his tea silently. Her story isn’t a happily ever after, no such thing exists. As far as Magnus can tell, the only difference between a happy ending a sad ending is where you end the story.

Catarina lived with her soulmate until he passed, and decades later, when she could bear to speak of it, described the world going gray again. He doesn’t say “told you so” or “what else did you expect,” but he asks her how she thinks the weather is in Tuscany, and they go. He makes her Negronis and holds her hand in the evenings.

Later, Ragnor scoffs, tells Magnus that soulmates are wishful thinking, cruel make-believe for lonely warlocks, a cautionary tale or a fairy tale, depending on who you asked and at what time of the day. Shops spring up in dark alleys, palm readers offer to pinpoint the exact time and date you’ll meet your soulmate for $50, a bargain if you’re alone.

“My friend,” Ragnor says, “it’s just an enterprising warlock’s idea to make money. If such a thing truly exists, then it’s so rare as to be inconsequential for us. And what a fabulous idea it is.” He opens his newspaper to the back page, taps the seedy ads promising soulmates, worlds bursting with color.

Magnus thinks about Catarina’s head in his lap, hair pooled over his knees, stroking damp strands away from her cheeks, and quietly agrees.

Throughout the years, Magnus falls in love, falls out of love, skips countries, loses people, gains friends, and makes more than a few enemies. He feels his heart grow incrementally colder.

He tells himself, arms around Camille while she complains about the Accords, that soulmates don’t matter; he was made for the night.

 

  
2.

The first time he meets Alec, he’d like to think he’s deep enough to recognize the beauty of his soul, but really, he thinks, Good aim, tall, hot mouth. Yeah, he’s interested.

He flirts with abandon, helplessly drawn into Alec’s vaguely unfriendly orbit.

They go on a date and play a game of pool, while Alec nurses a lukewarm beer. He doesn’t order anything else, choosing to stick with the drink Magnus ordered for him, which is stupid and a little touching.

Magnus wins the first round and Alec cleans the table the second time. Magnus whistles lowly. “Kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right?”

Alec looks confused for a moment, then breaks out into a wide grin. “That was-- _no_.”

Magnus shrugs cheerfully. “Had to try. It’s worked for me before.”

They settle at the bar and Alec, leaning forward, asks, “So what’s the worst pickup line you’ve used?”

Magnus thinks for a minute. “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I pass by again?”

Alec laughs quietly. “It’s pretty bad,” he says. “So, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Believe in love at first sight?”

Magnus sips his drink slowly. “I believe in infatuation at first sight. Love is more complicated.”

“Yeah, but you’ve heard the stories -- two soulmates meet, touch hands, see colors for the first time and spend their lives together. How else do you explain it except love?”

“I don’t know, Alexander,” Magnus says. “I guess it’s possible for some people, but I’m just not wired that way.”

“Yeah, okay. I can respect that.”

He sounds a little disappointed, and Magnus is a bit surprised. A Shadowhunter, a romantic? He’d like to explain to Alec how loving people and losing them over and over again hardens a person. How never being loved in return in exactly the right way damages you a little each time it happens, like a tiny cut in the same place that leaves a thicker scar each time.

But he doesn’t want to spread his cynicism around, not to Alec. Not tonight.

Alec isn’t a soft man. He’s prickly and blunt and takes up too much space in the easy manner of people who have always been in charge, but he’s honest, disarmingly so, and Magnus can’t remember a time when someone looked at him and told him they liked him without adding a qualifier.

Magnus sips his martini, and plays with his ring, twisting it back and forth on his finger as he basks in the balmy glow of Alec’s regard.

They kiss outside, and Alec’s bottom lip trembles against his own. It doesn’t have to mean anything, Magnus tells himself.

Dinosaurs don’t still exist, and Magnus is wrong all the same.

 

 

3.

After four dates and a dozen stolen kisses and awkward goodbyes, Alec shows up at his door looking flustered. He kisses Magnus like a starving man.

Oh shit, okay, Magnus thinks. They’re doing this.  
  
Honestly, Magnus means for it to be tender and gentle, but Alec’s hands are everywhere. They fall together on the bed, Magnus bracketed by Alec’s knees. “That was graceful,” Magnus says.

“Shadowhunter,” Alec replies, with a hint of a smile, eyes dark and heavy-lidded. He’s more than Magnus dared dream of, more, more.

Magnus kisses him, messy, teeth dragging over his full mouth. He feels magic spark in his fingertips, drags them over Alec’s warm skin just the see the muscles clench and jump beneath his touch.

He traces his tongue over the prominent black rune striping Alec’s neck, works his way down to rest, using Alec’s body like a pop quiz to test his memory - deflect, strength, agility, stamina - while Alec twists up the sheets beneath them.

He feels his glamour drop from his eyes and he pulls off and looks away, angry at himself for being ashamed and angry at Alec for making him feel this way. But then Alec has the nerve, the _sheer fucking audacity_ to tell him they’re beautiful, to look at Magnus wide-eyed and open, like there’s nothing wrong with him at all.

Magnus has set a thousand roadblocks to his heart, and Alec keeps accidentally bulldozing right through them, no runes needed.

He kisses Alec then, soft like he meant to at first. They strip off the rest of their clothes, fuck slowly, Alec riding him, head thrown back, and biting his lower lip as Magnus’ hands grip his hips tight enough to leave marks later.

Magnus cleans them both up and Alec wraps his arms around Magnus, holding him as careful as glass.

Later, he finds out Alec snores, soft snuffles in his sleep that Magnus finds irritatingly charming. In the night, he’s shifted away, curled in on himself and facing the wall. Magnus runs a hand across Alec’s shoulder, which Alec slaps away, grouchy even while sleeping. Magnus chuckles and slips out of bed.

It’s been a fun distraction, but he has a few potions to finish up.

He works for fifteen minutes before creeping back to his bedroom and peering around the doorframe tentatively like he’s afraid to be caught out, wrong-footed and staring at the guy he just fucked within an inch of his life. Alec’s still sleeping, on his stomach now, back pale in the square of moonlight.

Magnus goes back to his desk and lasts another twenty minutes before he gives up completely and heads back to bed.

“Tired of spying on me?” Alec asks without opening his eyes.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Magnus says and envelopes himself in the warm circle of Alec’s arms.

 

  
4.

Alec begins coming over four, five times a week and they eat together, watch movies, fuck slowly while making eye contact. He doesn’t even hog the covers afterward.

Magnus is in real fucking trouble.

He’s been here enough times to recognize the symptoms. It’s not a bad thing, exactly, but love just never seems to lead him anywhere he particularly wants to be.

A year ago, he might have said he’d been in love tons of times and none of those affairs were any less important for being fleeting, but now he’s not so sure. Alec is something new, a connection so profound, his mind automatically skitters away from it, as if failing to acknowledge it will keep it hidden away and safe.

Still, Alec deserves to know he’s important. He’s Magnus’ _something_ , even if he’s loathe to put a name to it.

He once put on a firework display for a lovely lady in China. He still remembers it, bursts of light behind her, and he can easily superimpose Alexander over the image, the tall silhouette of him blotting out everything else. It’s how he once showed love, and he doesn’t see why it can’t work again.

He gets everything ready for the evening and texts Alec to hurry home, fingers hesitating only slightly over the “h.”

He tells Alec to meet him outside where he’ll be waiting.

When Alec comes out to the balcony, fireworks immediately explode behind him.

“What the fuck?” Alec asks, stele glowing in his hand. Every time a new explosion goes off, Alec shudders, tense and jumpy. He looks like he doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’d definitely like to stab it.

Ok, so fireworks in Brooklyn maybe weren’t a great idea.

“I did this for you,” Magnus says, staring at the display anxiously. Police and the Fire Department are en route, judging by the sirens. Magnus is a little impressed by their response time. They won’t trace anything back to him, but even Magnus has to admit that fireworks in Imperialist China are a very different animal than fireworks in a New York borough.

“Are you crazy?” Alec yells over the noise.

“Maybe,” Magnus admits and snaps his fingers, ears ringing unpleasantly in the sudden silence.

“Why did you--” Alec stops yelling when he realizes the sound has stopped. He starts again, but still a shade too loud, “Why did you do this?”

Magnus can’t say why, exactly. It was, like so many of his worst decisions, an impulse. If he had to be honest, which he most assiduously does not want to be, he was maybe trying to retread old ground to better understand where he is now, to convince himself this is just another affair like any other.

“The empress liked it,” Magnus murmurs.

“You’re recycling romantic ideas?” Alec asks.

“Possibly,” Magnus hedges. Maybe instead of re-creating moments in past relationships, he should focus on making new ones with Alec instead.

“Well, I don’t really know what to say. This is both romantic and creepy.” Alec leans forward, elbows against the rail, profile outlined in bright flashes. Magnus watches them for a moment, a smaller firework, spiraling up and out of sight before exploding out of nowhere, brilliant enough to leave spots dancing in his vision, even after he looks away.

His gaze, as always, wanders back to Alec, to the easy slope of Alec’s wide shoulders as he props his chin on his hand, sparks reflected in his eyes.

 

  
5.

When Magnus wakes up in bed, he immediately reaches out, and feels nothing but cool empty sheets. His heart aches and he has to tamp down his disappointment a little, but Alec rarely stays. Usually, he presses a kiss to Magnus’ temple, whispers his apologies as he slides out of bed to get dressed. Work, rogue demon, Clave envoy - there’s always something a little more important than waking up with Magnus, and he honestly can’t blame Alec. It’s just how life is, and as someone who has lived as many of them as Magnus, he knows it better than most.

It’s dark outside, the sky lightening by increments. He tries never to be up this early; Alec’s nasty habits are rubbing off on him. Soon, he’ll be _exercising_ as the sun rises, like some kind of maniac.

He slips on a silk robe, snaps his fingers, and makes himself some tea. He’s just sitting down to drink it when movement outside catches his eye.

“Alexander?” he calls out, confused.

“Out here,” Alec answers.

Alec is on the balcony in one of Magnus’ spare robes, feet hastily shoved into scuffed boots, carefully pouring cream into the small bowls lining one side.

Birds are chirping nearby while Alec talks softly to the congregated cats, asks them where they came from, calls them lovely while scratching between their shoulder blades as they weave in-between his long legs. He steps, careful and a little awkward, from bowl to bowl, Magnus’ pilfered robe both hilariously and alluringly too short.

“Made you coffee, if you want any. It’s a little strong, but if you’re really desperate.”

“What an enticing offer,” Magnus says and clears his throat. “I thought you’d be gone already.”

“Yeah, well.” Alec scratches the back of his neck. “Why would I? You’re here.”

Magnus leans against the door, hugs his arms close to him to keep himself from shaking apart and sucks in a deep breath. He feels his eyes slide closed. Something wells up in his chest, too big and impossibly tender, and he lets go, stops fighting completely, as he exhales.

He looks up to see Alec staring back at him, grinning softly. Over Alec’s shoulder, Magnus sees the sun burst over the horizon, bright pink and orange.

 

 

 

 


End file.
